


no one wants you to be happy (more than i do)

by TheSubtextMachine



Category: Glee
Genre: Character Study, Kurt Hummel-Centric, M/M, Not Blaine or Klaine Friendly, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Texting, references to canon assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSubtextMachine/pseuds/TheSubtextMachine
Summary: With the help of Chandler's support and to the soundtrack of "Company", Kurt breaks up with Blaine. He finds himself in the process.
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Chandler Kiehl
Comments: 7
Kudos: 154





	no one wants you to be happy (more than i do)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you @alphabees-writes for being my beta!! Title comes from "Poor Baby" from Company!

**Kurt:** Hey can I ask you a question?

 **Chandler:** The answer is yes.

 **Kurt:** I haven’t asked you the question yet, though?

 **Chandler:** The answer is probably going to be yes, since you’re asking it.

 **Kurt:** My question was if you would be willing to help me pick out my NYADA audition song. I know we haven’t talked in like a week because of the Blaine phone debacle, but he says we can be friends now, since he’s sick of hearing me talk about my song choice.

 **Chandler:** The answer is yes, I was right. What are your thoughts on doing some Sondheim?

-

Kurt is at his busiest when he and Chandler get back in touch. Rachel is on his every move with a question or a thought, Finn is using him as makeshift therapist for his college troubles, and Blaine is… Blaine.

Kurt never expected that a side effect of Blaine trying to rehabilitate the relationship would be a sudden increase in how much time they were spending together. Suddenly, their idle date nights become action packed with all sorts of activities, from roller skating to swing dancing to a cooking class.

He asks him about it, one night, when they’re walking out of a double feature horror movie, not holding hands and being very aware of the fact that they aren’t holding hands.

“Well, I’m just trying to find something for us to do together. Like, a cute little thing that we can share,” says Blaine, before checking his phone.

“If that was what you were looking to do,” says Kurt, smiling as ideas begin to hit him, “I have plenty of ideas for-”

“I need to take this,” says Blaine, pointing at his phone. 

They’re standing in the middle of the movie theatre lobby, and Blaine walks off without another word, leaving Kurt stranded in the middle of the open space.

Kurt gravitates towards a wall, googles “fun couples activities” while he waits for Blaine to finish the call, and marks down his favorites. He finishes one article, and then another, and then he gets that itch, the itch of dissatisfaction.

He knows it’s not a helpful emotion, the bitterness that’s curdling in his head every time something like this happens, where Blaine cuts Kurt off mid-genius idea, or when he leaves Kurt alone. Kurt opens up his text messages, and his finger hovers over Rachel’s number, then Finn’s, and then Mercedes’, before he decides to just bite the bullet.

 **Kurt:** Is it weird that I feel like a guest in my relationship? Like… Blaine owns the house and can kick me out at any time, he makes the rules, I’m just here because he deigned to invite me. What does that mean?

 **Chandler:** No idea, I’m as single as they come, but you already know that. He’s being stupid, because while he may own the house, you own the whole street.   
**Chandler:** You deserve more than to feel like a visitor, Kurt

 **Kurt:** Thanks for being such a sap, I needed that. He cut me off for a phone call right when I started to feel like I might have the chance at some input. He’s coming back so I’m going to go, but if you want to come to my actual house and help me practice, that could be arranged.

 **Chandler:** If the analogy is still going on, I’m losing track of it, but if this is a genuine invitation to your house, I would like to go and get the full tour. I will not leave until I’ve seen some adorable baby Kurt photos!!!

Kurt laughs at the message just as Blaine arrives back in his point of view. 

Blaine immediately starts ranting about the phone call he just had with Cooper, and the couple's activities don’t get brought up again. Kurt pretends that he doesn’t notice.

-

“Is it weird that I kind of regret meeting Blaine?” asks Kurt one day, sitting in one of the choir room chairs and looking anywhere but Santana’s face, which he’s 99% sure is looking at him like he’s crazy. 

Their practice session has been peppered with bursts of productivity followed by long breaks, and the question is pushing at the forefront of Kurt’s mind. He’s sure that as a member of one of the most functional New Directions relationships, Santana would know if he was being crazy. Right?

“Depends,” says Santana, and now that Kurt braves the risk of looking at her face, he sees no judgement, just a blase honesty.

“On what?”

“I think it’s normal to feel big feelings like regret and shit, but do you also feel the flip side? For every feeling of regret, do you feel pride? Do you feel content?” Santana asks.

“I- I don’t understand.”

“Relationships are frickin’ intense, Kurt. Being a human is intense. There’s room in that tiny twink head to feel both. You can be scared of someone leaving and staying at the same time. I’m assuming he’s giving you something good, or you would’ve dumped his flat ass a hot minute ago. So here's the real question, Twinkletoes. At the end of the day, does whatever joy you feel with Blaine, does that joy outweigh your doubts?”

Kurt stares at her like a deer caught in headlights.

“I’m asking you. Are you happier than you are sorry?”

Kurt doesn’t know the answer. 

-

 **Chandler:** So where are we?

 **Kurt:** Ohio???

 **Chandler:** Emotionally. Like. Are we friends? Mutual pining situation? Arch nemeses?

 **Kurt:** Friends.  
 **Kurt:** But like. Complicated friends. 

**Chandler:** Our Facebook relationship status is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 **Kurt:** Finally, someone who gets it  
 **Kurt:** Thank you for listening to me complain about my boyfriend and joke flirt with me to make me feel better 

**Chandler:** Who’s joking

 **Kurt:** ...you?

 **Chandler:** You can tell our status is complicated bc even I’m confused

-

It becomes a weird little game among glee, where the other members will try to figure out who Kurt would date if Blaine wasn’t in the picture. 

The conversation first pops up when Blaine is taking a sick day, when Rory asks Kurt where the other gay guys in Lima are. Kurt knows of five, and he is one, he’s dating another, and the other three have at some point hit on either him or Blaine. 

That’s when Sugar mentions that when he moves to New York, Kurt will have more options, and Tina asks the question: What kind of guy would Kurt even date if Blaine wasn’t in the picture?

Everyone, it turns out, has an opinion.

Rachel says that Kurt would _obviously_ go for the more hunky, jock types, while Sam says that Kurt would probably mesh more with divas like him. The conversation goes on like this, with Kurt refusing to say a word about his “type” (he doesn’t really have one, if he’s being honest) and everyone throwing in their theory into the pot. 

It’s a long and awkward lunch period for Kurt, and he makes the mistake of thinking it’s over, but even when Blaine’s sick day is long over, Kurt still gets the occasional text from Tina with a picture of a guy asking if Kurt found him attractive, trying to find common threads between the yes’s and the nos. 

Kurt, despite himself, thinks that if Blaine wasn’t in the picture, he’d be dating Chandler.

He doesn’t tell Tina this.

-

 **Chandler:** You know that I’ll wait for you, right?

 **Kurt:** Elaborate on that???

 **Chandler:** No [heart emoji] [kiss face emoji] [fairy emoji]

-

Kurt doesn’t have a crush on Chandler, but he does wonder what it would be like if they dated.

It becomes a little hobby, when he’s witnessing his friends progress in their relationships while his and Blaine’s has stayed maddeningly still.

He looks at bits and pieces of their relationships, at the way they interact, and thinks that if he and Chandler were together, they’d be like that.

For example, he thinks he and Chandler would fight like Mike and Tina fight.

They have these quiet fights that are rarely fixed with a heart to heart- they’ll disagree, and one of them will just _do_ something to show that they’ll be fine, and they share a long look, and it’s worked out. While Kurt philosophically prefers the way Brittany and Santana fight, he knows he and Chandler would fight like Mike and Tina, because Kurt has never been as good at talking about something as he is at doing it.

He doesn’t think it necessarily means he has a crush on Chandler, if he ends up thinking more about their hypothetical relationship than he does about him and Blaine’s real one.

\- 

One of the first things Kurt learns about Chandler, about the kind of person he is, deep inside, is that the man _loves_ movement.

Chandler, for one, dances. Not particularly well, but he dances at anything. At the music playing in stores, at the song Kurt hums idly, at the rhythmic beeping of a bus backing up. 

Chandler’s the kind of person who never stops moving, he never stops thinking about something. When Kurt asks Chandler why he wants to move to New York, while they’re walking aimlessly through the music sheet store where they first met, that’s what Chandler says.

“New York never stops moving. There’s always more people, more ideas, more _art_. I can meet a new hundred people every day and not be done with the city. There’s- it’s perfect. It’s _me_.”

Kurt can only smile at Chandler and feel like whatever is happening, it’s so unbelievably _right_. 

“What are you looking at?” Chandler asks, when he catches Kurt staring at his face in wonder.

“Just thinking,” says Kurt, and he tears his eyes away from the sunlight that is Chandler’s radiant glow.

-

 **Kurt:** Hypothetical question  
 **Kurt:** If someone kisses and gropes you after you tell them to stop but when you push them off they stop trying to get you to have sex with them is that still assault  
 **Kurt:** And does the answer change if the person doing the grabbing is drunk

 **Chandler:** ... Do I need to beat a bitch up

 **Kurt:** NO absolutely not  
 **Kurt:** I just read a definition of assault though and it kinda sounded like that (which happened to my friend) and idk if that counts and/or should be worried about  
 **Kurt:** Because the person who did it apologized but never talked about it like it was sexual assault so idk if it was  
 **Kurt:** I feel like I’m being a little bit crazy about this. Should I get a shrink???

 **Chandler:** That is assault, and get a therapist, not because you’re crazy but because you’ve been through a lot and it always helps to have a professional to help you

 **Kurt:** Another hypothetical question:  
 **Kurt:** If someone basically says “I didn’t look through your phone, I just saw the alert and opened it up and looked through your message history” is that gaslighting  
 **Kurt:** I’m reading some articles right now and that happened to a friend and it seemed familiar

 **Chandler:** This sounds like gaslighting  
 **Chandler:** Is it Blaine? Did Blaine do these things??? 

**Kurt:** If he is the one doing it how would you recommend I react

 **Chandler:** LEAVE HIM. Tell your friends about this behavior. If Blaine is actually doing these things please please PLEASe get out of that relationship this doesn’t sound healthy for you

 **Kurt:** But he loves me  
 **Kurt:** Like?? If he just wants me to be happy

 **Chandler:** Kurt.   
**Chandler:** Do these things that he’s doing make you happy?

**Kurt:** But what if I’m just being crazy????  
 **Kurt:** I’ll talk to him about it and see if we can figure it out

-

Kurt thinks he’s going a little bit crazy.

Scratch that: a _lot_ crazy.

He’s even in Ms. Pillsbury’s office, trying to sound less crazy, and her concerned doe eyes are on him in full force.

After he talks about his restless night spent researching what emotional manipulation looks like and wondering if Blaine has been doing that, Ms. Pillsbury just _stares_.

Okay, so he’s definitely going crazy.

After a long moment, she reaches into her desk and slides a pamphlet across it.

**So… Yikes.**

He looks back up to Ms. Pillsbury.

“What does that mean?” Kurt asks. “Am I crazy? Tell me. Give me guidance. I’m not being abused by Blaine, I’m just crazy. Right?”

Ms. Pillsbury holds up the pamphlet again, before putting it down. “If everything you’re saying is true, which I don’t see a reason why you’d lie to me, then yes, what you and Blaine have is not healthy. I think it would be advantageous for you to take a step back from… that.”

Kurt can only nod.

-

“Taking a step back” is a relative term, and Kurt has no idea how to implement it. Kurt decides that for him, it just means not initiating dates anymore, but not turning it down when Blaine suggests them.

He’s aiming for a half-in, half-out situation, where he and Blaine are together, but only a little. Together enough where they can call each other boyfriends, but not together enough that Blaine can hold him down or make him feel less free.

It turns out to work, a little. They spend less time together, and Kurt refuses to think too much about it. It’s a tender distance, and when Blaine crosses it, when Blaine takes him on a date or kisses him without Kurt expecting it, it leaves a little sting, like being slapped on the arm.

He doesn’t tell Blaine that he’s taking a step back, that he’s numbing himself for when things go south, because he knows they will.

It works, for a bit. 

-

 **Chandler:** Okay so can I invite my friends to your surprise birthday party

 **Kurt:** My surprise birthday party???

 **Chandler:** I know you hate surprises so I figured I might as well warn you. Burt said I could bring a plus one but I don’t know if it will be awkward if I bring one of my friends? So what do you recommend?

 **Kurt:** Thanks for warning me, I’ll get dressed up. Bring Harriet, I’ve been wanting to meet her!

 **Chandler:** Awesome!! She wants to meet you too.

 **Kurt:** What have you told her about me???

 **Chandler:** That you’re very talented and handsome and funny and that *** ** **** **** ***

 **Kurt:** WHAT DID YOU REDACT  
 **Kurt:** Was it something mean

 **Chandler:** About you? Never.

-

Kurt’s eighteenth birthday party is spent overhearing people talk about him, and he’s started to miss the time in his life when he was energetic and proud enough to tear people apart for doing that.

The Hudmel house is alight in party supply lights and music, coming from impromptu song breakouts from his friends and the speaker in the living room playing Kurt’s favorite songs. He walks through like a ghost, fluttering in and out of conversations, whether it be Blaine entertaining a circle of their friends with a barely factual Diva Kurt story or Rachel talking about her NYADA audition to anyone who will listen.

The worst part, though, is that when he walks through the party, he can’t help but pick up little sentences, little quips made about him.

Blaine, for example, mentions that “He’s so funny, he really is! A little bit immature, but so fun.”

Kurt wonders what Blaine would say if Kurt told him that he heard, and is scared at the possibility that Blaine wouldn’t care. 

Then Artie’s saying “We’re all so crazy, but he keeps us together! Honestly- what would we do without him?”, and Kurt’s flattered.

He walks past Harriet and Chandler, in their own little corner (according to Chandler, Harriet’s his platonic soulmate- they’ve known each other since infancy, and they have the same twitchy energy), and hears Harriet say “He really is gorgeous, I approve.”

Kurt’s never been more ready to get out of Lima, even if some of his friends are ready to wax poetic about how they couldn’t get on without Kurt. Kurt just wants to run the hell away from it, from all of these people, from _Blaine_.

There’s a moment, when it’s dark outside and the backyard has cleared out, where Kurt goes to sit and stare at the sky. He looks up at the sky, the same one he looked up at as a kid, and he wonders what they’re saying about him in his absence. He doesn’t know if he should be worried at how he’s sure that Chandler is saying good things, but can’t imagine Blaine saying anything half as nice.

The silence is soothing, and Kurt imagines that he’s in New York, staring at the sky.

Kurt can imagine Chandler by his side, but not Blaine, and that strengthens a conviction in him that he didn’t know he had.

-

Kurt breaks up with Blaine on a Sunday, three days before his NYADA audition. 

They’re at Lima Bean when he does it, when the need to just end this dumb game becomes stronger than the need to pretend he’s fine jumps out at him.

“You don’t want me to be happy,” says Kurt, calm like it’s a conversation starter.

“What?” is all Blaine says, but he has the wherewithal to look concerned.

“You don’t care about me like that, and-” Kurt takes a deep breath, “This isn’t going to work.”

Blaine doesn’t respond. He stares at Kurt with wide, dumbfounded eyes, and Kurt decides to continue.

“This- you… our relationship doesn’t make me happy,” says Kurt. He pushes out his chair and stands up, his expression nearly glacial. “I can’t do this anymore.”

-

 **Kurt:** I just broke up with Blaine  
 **Kurt:** In the middle of Lima Bean

 **Chandler:** Wait, what??  
 **Chandler:** Kurt, I’m so proud of you

 **Kurt:** Is it weird that I don’t feel anything

 **Chandler:** I don’t think there’s a “normal” here

-

Kurt’s friends are on him the minute the breakup goes public, ping after ping after ping on his phone asking question after question, and he’s just trying to practice his piece for this audition. He puts his phone on Do Not Disturb but can hear a phantom sort of buzz in his head, going until he can hardly stand it anymore. 

He feels so unbelievably old, like he’s been putting up with decades of this, not just hours. 

Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a zinger, and he knows that the minute they sit down for lunch, he’ll hear all of it. He knows it won’t stop, because it doesn’t stop, not for him. 

It’s been years of just watching for him, and he finally wishes he’d never participated in the swirling cesspool of glee love drama, until he’s aching with regret.

All the wishes, the need to be anywhere but _here_ , it somehow grows in him, like a little plant that he needs to take care of. His hunger grows, and he knows that if nothing else will get him out of Lima, it’s his hunger.

-

 **Kurt:** My audition is today!!!!

 **Chandler:** Break a leg <3!!

 **Kurt:** Either way, you and me are going to be in NY together. Even if I bomb this.

 **Chandler:** Which you won’t.

 **Kurt:** Somehow? I believe you. 

-

Kurt’s on stage, at his NYADA audition, and everything has stopped.

Carmen Tibideaux is close enough to walk to, and the lights are on him, white and loud, and Kurt feels whole, he feels like he’s enough. Kurt’s been too much and not enough so many times that they’ve all balanced out- he’s felt every extreme, and he’s _lived_.

“Hello. My name is Kurt Hummel, and I’ll be singing ‘Being Alive’ from Company,” he says, without a tremor in his voice. 

The piano behind him begins to play. He takes one long breath in, one long breath out, and begins to sing, and with the shining white certainty of a man who’s been through hell, knows that it’s going to be okay.


End file.
